U.S.|An Outpouring of Support as Two Towns Mourn Lafayette Shooting Victims

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An Outpouring of Support as Two Towns Mourn Lafayette Shooting Victims

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Dondie Breaux, whose 21-year-old daughter, Mayci, was killed in the shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, La., last week, was consoled outside the Church of the Assumption in Franklin, La.CreditCreditStacy Revere/Getty Images

By Henrick Karoliszyn and Leslie Turk

July 27, 2015

FRANKLIN, La. — Residents of this tightknit region known for its Cajun music and sugar cane farms came together Monday to say goodbye to two of their own.

Hundreds of mourners filled the overflowing Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption here on Monday to remember Mayci Breaux, 21, as an effervescent, intelligent young woman with a bright future who was killed in last week’s shooting in a Lafayette movie theater. In Lafayette, about 50 miles to the northwest, family and friends gathered at a private service for Jillian Johnson, 33.

Both women died on Thursday night when John R. Houser, who had been in Lafayette for only a few weeks, opened fire in a theater showing the comedy “Trainwreck.” Mr. Houser wounded nine others before taking his own life. The tragedy has left residents trying to understand the loss.

“How are we dealing?” Frances Ayres Handy asked before Ms. Johnson’s funeral. “By holding our community, our friends and our families very close. Our Lafayette is dealing with this with the same force of love and creativity that helped us get through our last horrific tragedy” — the slaying of a college student in 2012.

The Rev. Susan Pugh, 54, a lifelong resident of Franklin who preaches at the First United Methodist Church across the street from where Ms. Breaux’s funeral took place, said the residents had banded together.

“This whole town is mourning. It’s unbelievable,” Ms. Pugh said. “Nothing like this has happened here before. We are Cajuns and we pull together. When disaster happens we’re all here as one. We work hard, play hard and love hard — like a family.”

Anne Oestriecher, 52, a relative of Ms. Breaux’s and a family spokeswoman, held back tears as she acknowledged the Franklin community that had showered the family with food and emotional support since the shooting last Thursday. “The outpouring of support has been overwhelming,” Ms. Oestriecher said. “We have been completely blown away by how many people have reached out to us.” Ms. Breaux “was someone that people looked up to,” she said outside the church. “She had so much to look forward to.”

She was enrolled at Louisiana State University at Eunice, where she was studying to become an ultrasound and radiology technician, and she was scheduled to begin her clinical rotation at Lafayette General Medical Center, Ms. Oestriecher said.

Ms. Johnson was a champion of the region. She was a co-owner of a printing business, Parish Ink, which specialized in shirts that trumpeted boudin sausage, plate lunches and other old Acadiana verities. She owned a boutique business with her husband that sold poster prints, jewelry, wallets and other items.

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Jason Brown at the funeral service for his wife, Jillian Johnson, at the Delhomme Funeral Home in Lafayette.CreditPool photo by Paul Kieu

“She was an artist, a musician, an entrepreneur and a true renaissance woman,” her husband, Jason Brown, said. “She was the love of my life and I will miss her always.”

The spirit of these communities, residents said, could be found in their response to Twitter messages over the weekend from the Westboro Baptist Church indicating that its members would picket Monday’s funerals. The church, based in Topeka, Kan., is known for its fervent anti-gay stance and for its protests at funerals of American service members killed at war.

More than 16,000 people signed up on Facebook to form a “human barrier” to get between potential protesters and funeral goers. Gov. Bobby Jindal also directed police to enforce state laws against disturbing a funeral.

Residents said they did not want anyone standing in the way of the grieving process for one of their own. “We wouldn’t have let protesters stop that,” Ms. Pugh said. No members of Westboro Baptist Church could be seen Monday at either funeral.

Mary Tutwiler, a friend of Ms. Johnson’s, said she wanted her friend’s death to have more meaning.

“In the past few days, I have been so sad and so angry, I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Ms. Tutwiler said. “But the thing about knowing Jillian is that in the same place, she would have taken it upon herself to do something. Things flash through my mind: better federal and state laws regulating the sale of guns, better databases, assault weapon bans. The national conversation is now personal — it’s my conversation as well.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: An Outpouring of Support as Two Louisiana Towns Mourn Shooting Victims. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe